


ley lines

by malfaisant



Category: Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, spoilers for Blood of Tyrants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-12
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-17 11:17:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3527297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malfaisant/pseuds/malfaisant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tharkay makes it to Peking intact with the news of Napoleon’s imminent invasion of Russia. Which would be all well and good, except that Laurence isn’t very intact himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> shoutout to Kiran for being THE ABSOLUTE WORST and helping me finish this fic by yelling at me a lot.

Tharkay immediately knew something was amiss when, after having not seen him in over a year, Laurence chose to greet him in Chinese.

The messengers’ pavilion in Zhongnanhai was bustling with activity, small courier dragons flitting in and out of the court like slivers of jade, civil servants carrying armfuls of scrolls. Scarlet dragons loosely patrolled the skies, the insignia of the Imperial Guard on their chest reflecting the mid-afternoon sun. Tharkay felt their gaze on the back of his neck, thin-slitted eyes watching him carefully from where some of them were perched on the eaves of surrounding buildings. There was a heavier presence of guards than he last remembered, though he’d not been in Peking in some time. He alighted down Arkady’s side and was in the midst of loosening the leather harness when he caught at the corner of his vision, a flash of fair hair coming from the direction of the western gate.

“Greetings. I was told to receive a messenger here with an urgent missive for me.”

Tharkay beheld the odd reception with ill-concealed surprise. Putting aside the introduction—the unexpected formality was, after all, not what you’d call uncharacteristic of William Laurence, though definitely incongruous with the man as he’d come to know him in friendly company—Laurence was wearing ornate green silk robes, excessively embroidered with golden thread, beads weighing heavily on the sleeves; the gaudy kind of fashion that must have been forced upon him by circumstance, and most likely egged on enthusiastically by a certain dragon. Yet it was less his costume and more a certain peculiarity about his bearing that made Tharkay uneasy. Arkady bent his neck to look curiously at Laurence and promptly interrogated, “Why is Temeraire not with you?”

Laurence’s eyes widened, confusion plain on his face as he looked between Tharkay and Arkady. Tharkay put a hand on Arkady’s neck and murmured, “Pray, remember Laurence does not speak your tongue.” He then turned to Laurence, and carefully replied in English, “Your tones are still awkward, but your accent is much less wooden than it used to be. I suppose all those hopeless lessons on the _Allegiance_ have finally borne some fruit.”

A confused look was all of Laurence’s reply, before an expression of grim realisation crossed his face, his mouth turning into a harsh, thin line. “I do apologise entirely. I should have realised sooner—“

The rest of his answer was interrupted by a flurry of wings bearing down upon the courtyard, Temeraire suddenly hovering above them. He landed next to Arkady, as nearby dragons and humans alike immediately recognised and made way for the Celestial. He bent down his head and cried, nuzzling his captain, “Laurence! I wish you would not sneak off so, after all that has happened. Besides which, General Chu is waiting on us to finish preparations for Xi’an and though he does not say so I think he must believe we are being deliberately slow—”

Laurence ran a comforting hand over Temeraire’s muzzle, his expression not a little distressed. “I am receiving a messenger, dearest.”

Temeraire looked up, finally noticing their guests. “Oh, Tharkay!”

Tharkay gave a small nod of his head. “It’s good to see you too, Temeraire. Do tell me what has ailed your captain in the year since I left him so.”

“Oh, Tharkay, everything has turned horrible since you were gone! Laurence is suffering from some brain fever, and it has caused him to forget many important things!”

Whatever Tharkay had been expecting, it wasn’t that. He looked at the man himself for confirmation; Laurence looked equal parts resigned and remorseful as he spoke, his brows furrowed slightly, and that was when Temeraire’s words truly hit him, like a cold gust of wind.

“I...I am William Laurence of His Majesty’s Aerial Corps, and I am sorry to say that I have not the slightest notion of who you might be.”

*

Tharkay’s news had derailed the British aviators quite considerably, catching them just as they were in the midst of departure. They had only just decided to go to Xi’an, but the fresh news of Napoleon's intentions to invade Russia had thrown a wrench into this plan, with some of the captains now arguing they rendezvous with the corps at Gibraltar, or even fly to Moscow straightaway. Tharkay had taken it upon himself to end the argument by drawing their attention to the red dragon with a great golden mane across the pavilion—General Lung Shao Chu was by then fully awake, sitting upright on his haunches and staring at them with sharp eyes, an expectant expression on his face. Urgent though his news of Napoleon’s invasion, there was no disobeying a direct Imperial command.

So it was only some hours after Tharkay arrived in the city that he was back in the air, joining Ambassador Hammond aboard the Incan dragon, Churki, after appropriate introductions. He had to leave Arkady behind, as even if he had not been tired from their journey to Peking, Tharkay was unsure if he could’ve been persuaded to match the breakneck speed of the Chinese aerial company.

In between chewing mouthfuls of some odd leaves, Hammond began to fill in some details: how Laurence was lost somewhere off Nagasaki; the loss of his memories from since before the start of his career as an aviator; the recent assassination attempt on Prince Mianning and Laurence; and finally, the Emperor’s recent audience with Laurence himself, that had given them their current mission. Well, that explained the robes, at least.

Tharkay looked across to the front of their company, to the lone black dragon in a cloud of red and blue. Laurence was alone aboard Temeraire, a bottle-green speck in his aviator’s coat. Beyond their initial meeting, he had not spoken to Laurence alone, had not spoken to him directly past a curt summary of who he was and the news he’d brought with him.

They flew continuously for hours on end, and just when Tharkay had begun to suspect the Chinese meant to fly them through the night did they finally halt and descend in the outskirts of Baoding. Prince Mianning had requested Laurence and Temeraire’s audience upon their landing and in no uncertain terms, Laurence later conveyed in the meeting with the other captains, promised that should their venture prove successful, they would receive the complement of the Emperor’s forces to join them to the west.

Such a promise did little to assuage the company’s restlessness, aside from Hammond, and only gave fresh desperation that this ambiguous mission in Xi’an should succeed. After a round of argument, there was little choice but to stay their current course—the prospect of the Chinese corps augmenting their forces was too vital, their alliance too tenuous to risk.

Tharkay spoke only rarely, standing at the edge of the tent with his arms crossed, supplying intelligence—what number of troops already mobilised of the Grande Armée, their positions on the Polish border, the time-frame of invasion, the condition of Wellington’s campaign in Spain. As he gave a report of scouted supply lines to Moscow, his eyes met those of Laurence briefly. There was a curious expression on his face, and Tharkay could almost hear the question aloud.

Who was he to Laurence, precisely?

Tenzing prided himself on few things, a number of notable exceptions that he’d come to recognise out of necessity. His ability to make Arkady to listen to him across several continents, for one. His capacity for self-denial, another, despite that he’d been faced with a myriad of occasion that gave him cause to doubt it at times. Following a man through oceans and deserts to the ends of the world and back might seem perhaps a failure of this very faculty, but he’d decided he should be so commended for the extent of his self-control. He had not asked for more than to be near him, after all.

He was, however, not proud of his excess of pride. Though he did not blame himself as such, having accepted long ago that he was inevitably in part what the world shaped him to be, he recognised himself a supremely bitter creature, prone to carefully nursing grudges, with little capacity to forgive. He was not stupid enough to be at all ashamed of this, but had rather accepted it as a fact. His was not a noble heart.

Small comfort this proved to be, when he met Captain William Laurence, recently of His Majesty's Navy.

It was not the man he had sailed with to Australia, a traitor and the most foolishly honorable man Tharkay had ever known. It was not the man who swore his loyalty to him at the small price of his own. It was not even the man who first crossed the Taklamakan with him, full of suspicion and righteous anger, because at least that Laurence knew his name. It was certainly not _Will_.

Tharkay rolled the name in his tongue and swallowed it. He had been forgotten. That it hurt more than he would allow it proved how truly, _truly_ careless he'd become, how complacent. When it was not the deliberate cruelty of other men, it was mere chance, with all its vagaries and ironic sense of humour, that should so conspire to make him miserable. He admitted a small, quiet horror alongside it all, at the depths of maudlin he’d been reduced to.

At the very least, there were several other miserable creatures to commiserate with.

“Ah, here you are,” said Granby when he arrived, bringing a bottle of baijiu stolen from the kitchen hands and two small cups. Tharkay looked up from he was sitting at the outskirts of their camp, sharpening a knife, with the rest of his accoutrements arrayed on the ground in a half-circle around him. “You left so quickly after the meeting that I thought you’d fallen back to old habits and gone off into the desert without a word.”

“Is that wise?” Tharkay asked, with a nod at the bottle. “We have an early start tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, come now, Tenzing. Our present circumstances are certainly reason enough for it, even without that we’ve not seen each other proper in a good year.” Granby sat unceremoniously on the ground beside him, confident of his welcome, and quickly poured a cup for himself and Tharkay, which he accepted.

“And what an eventful year it has evidently been,” replied Tharkay with a pointed look at his arm, or rather the empty sleeve where half his arm used to be, to which Granby simply shrugged. “Forgive me. After such a reception, I am quite wary of sure footing, in case your late adventures have left the rest of you similarly dispossessed.”

Granby laughed, his manner as easy and informal as the rest of him; he was down to his waistcoat, having left his jacket elsewhere, and his hair untied from its usual queue. Tharkay took a sip of his drink, and the warmth that bloomed in his chest was not unpleasant. “There’s also less of me than when we last parted ways, true enough,” replied Granby with good humour, “but no, Laurence’s current condition is unique to him—though the more I think about what’s happened since you left, the more I’m inclined to think that perhaps parting ways was the mistake.”

Tharkay raised an eyebrow. “A flattering notion, but I wouldn’t dare to be so presumptuous. Laurence had the complement of a twenty-ton nursemaid single-handedly capable of leveling cities, who is not a little invested in his safety. No,” he said, raising his cup, “I should rather attribute it to Captain William Laurence’s unique talent of attracting such exciting circumstance.”

“Aye, to William bleedin’ Laurence,” said Granby, clinking their glasses together. Tharkay finished the rest of his drink. “Just begs the question of whether the man has a knack for finding trouble, or if it’s happenstance that trouble always seems to find him,” he added, as he refilled their cups.

“I suspect a confluence of both.”

The conversation paused, and they drank in silence, interspersed by the occasional noise of the blue dragons in the midst of their late evening duties, the clink of porcelain as cups were refilled. Patrols over the camp would now and then briefly eclipse the moon behind the expanse of wings. The arrangement reminded him of nights aboard the _Allegiance_ , with the cool winds and the soft glow of lanterns, though most of them were by now already extinguished for the night.

It was not the first time they’d found refuge in each other’s company, given the similarity of their dispositions. They both willingly followed the man to exile, after all.

“He’s adapted much fairer that I would have expected him to,” Tharkay ventured.

“I’m damned if I don’t wish he were so much less composed. A good decade of memories just fallen out of his head? But I guess we can only be thankful, that Will could manage so amiably if only to enact his duty.”

“I take it he did not receive the news of his treason as magnanimously as he did the rest.”

Granby looked away. “Ah, well.”

Tharkay resisted the urge to rub his temple. “You have not told him.”

“Oh, Lord, Tenzing. Yesterday he knew he was a sea-captain, and now he’s an aviator and a prince of China besides.”

“It’s a temporary respite; he will find out inevitably.”

“I’m of the hope that he should remember before then, and save us all the trouble of breaking his heart.”

“It is difficult to entertain such a hope when he’s scarcely afforded us such similar consideration,” Tharkay said, as dispassionately as he could manage—which, it turned out, was not at all.

To his credit, Tharkay was gratified he had enough dignity left to be embarrassed by the outburst. “I do apologise, John. Even with the confidence you’ve allowed, I overstep my boundaries, and if you can accept it as product of a tired mind, having spent more hours on the road than in sleep these past few weeks, I would be very grateful,” he said, having recovered himself.

Granby scoffed and waved a dismissive hand, which being the only hand he had in service, was also the hand holding his cup. A splash of alcohol spilled on the ground, but he paid it no mind. “It’s not as though I’m not in your confidence as well, with more than enough proof to see me to the gallows should the inclination strike you.”

“Pray, that such queer inclinations avoid me, when others have not,” he said dryly. Granby laughed again, open and careless.

“It...It is not his fault,” Tharkay continued, more seriously. “Of course I cannot blame such cruel intention of anything, aside from the passing fancies of chance. But it is...difficult not to perceive it as a personal affront, that he should forget us in entire, and still be so whole.”

He stopped, for fear of having divulged too much, and opted instead for another sip of his drink. That he believed that the reverse could not be achieved, that to cut out the man would be to render himself unrecognisable, he left unsaid, though Granby seemed to have gleaned the rest of it anyway.

“He might still recover yet,” Granby said in a quiet voice.

Tharkay did not want look too closely at the part of him that desperately clung to the possibility. “I’m very fond of strategic pessimism,” he replied instead.

Granby smiled at him wryly and refilled his drink. “I cannot bring myself to be so hopeless yet, even when he looks strangely when I call him Will, and I persist even though I know such familiarity was never granted me, if only it should help jog his memory.”

“I would wager that such familiarity would not be so welcome from me.”

“Though it should be so from him?”

“I am discovering I do not take very well to being deprived of that which I have come to take for granted, though that may be given the scarcity of things I’ve been allowed to take under such auspices,” said Tharkay quietly.

“You’re more used to not having at all, than to have anything taken from you,” Granby replied. The blunt words had the ring of harsh truth to them, though they bore no hint of censure.

“Not in so many words,” Tharkay muttered, before finishing his drink in one go.

They spent the rest of their night in quiet conversation, meaningless small talk about mission plans and the like, and soon Granby bade him good night and retired to his tent. After a few moments, Tharkay packed away his forgotten knives and did the same.


	2. Chapter 2

The camp began to stir at the first hint of daybreak. Tharkay rose before the sun, but by the time he’d packed his tent the company was already aflurry with activity, with the Chinese aerial forces in the midst of preparations to go aloft, while the English aviators more groggily went about their own morning ablutions. Having finished packing his own gear, Tharkay was now deliberating on whether he ought to ride with Hammond, as there were too many questions about the conservative conspiracy in the Imperial Court and the supposed rebellion they were to help to put down in Shaanxi. If these same factions were so brazen as to attempt the assassination of the crown prince, then this mission was far more than the simple provincial rebellion it was made out to be. On the other hand, he could very well ask these questions of Granby, aboard Iskierka, as he’d only been privy to a couple of meetings with the other aviators regarding their current situation. He did not much like the diplomat, if that had to be said at all, and it might be that he could use the familiar company, circumstances being what they were.

Most of the dragons, when he found them, were by the large fountain, listening with rapt attention to General Chu; Temeraire was at the center, and Laurence beside him, listening just as closely. From what he’d gathered of the scene, it sounded as if the general was lecturing the English dragons on the slovenliness of their breakfast habits.

Tharkay meant to break away before he was noticed, but was belayed in the attempt, surprisingly, by Churki. The brightly feathered dragon had broken away from the group and approached him, looking down at him with an expectant and curiously appraising air. Tharkay was at a loss as to how to respond to her attention, as even with the not inconsiderable number of languages he had in his purview, he did not speak a word of Quechua. He tried a greeting in English, but Churki only tilted her head inquisitively in response and said, “Ayllu?”

He was saved from an awkward silence when Temeraire suddenly interjected between them. Churki and Temeraire began speaking in her language, and although he did not understand any of it, the topic of conversation was obviously himself. Temeraire sounded increasingly irritable as they spoke, snappish, and it seemed that even his mastery of the language was still tenuous, as he eventually resorted to English, saying, "No, you may not keep Tharkay as part of your _ayllu_! You can’t take Tharkay just because he's ridden you once, because Tharkay is mine, and Laurence's!"

Tharkay blinked, and felt that context would go some way to explaining that declaration.

"But Tharkay cannot even ride aboard you," interrupted Iskierka, revealing herself to have been eavesdropping on the conversation and adding, magnanimously, "And Granby is just as like to own Tharkay so if anything, he is almost part of _my_ crew, if he is anyone’s at all.”

“But he is not your crew now? Not captain?” Churki asked Temeraire, in heavily accented English.

“He is Arkady’s captain, but that is not the same,” Temeraire explained emphatically, glaring at Iskierka. “It is only because Arkady can only speak Durzagh and likes cows, that he stays with him!” To this, Churki responded again with more fast-paced Quechua.

"Temeraire, please. What does Churki want with me?" Tharkay asked, a little desperate, having just spotted Laurence standing behind Temeraire’s foreleg. He had the same questioning expression on his face as he did in yesterday’s meeting, and Tharkay felt suddenly compelled to disappear as quickly as possible.

“She is trying to reason that you are not attached to any crew, and you are handsome and healthy-looking, so she means to adopt you as part of her ayllu, except you are not unattached at all!!”

“I...apologise?” he tried, tentatively. Then, more firmly, “Please convey my apologies to Churki. I am not presently at liberty to be adopted by anyone.”

"But I am right, aren't I, Tharkay?" Temeraire said, pleadingly, after having translated his statement to a disappointed-looking Churki. "Only, I know you are not officially of my crew, but Laurence found you, and I have been slowly losing my crew to all these other dragons..." he trailed off, sullenly.

“I…” Tharkay started, unsure how to answer, which was not helped at all by Laurence’s continued proximity. He seemed as interested in the proceedings as Temeraire was, though he’d not said a word in the whole exchange. “It does not matter whose crew I am on, Temeraire. I am always your friend,” Tharkay answered, finally, and added, surprising himself, “and your captain’s too.”

With Temeraire now slightly mollified, Tharkay walked away to where the other officers were, distinctly aware that Laurence’s gaze never left him the entire time.

Tharkay flew aboard Iskierka that day after all, to her smug satisfaction, and Temeraire’s consternation.

*

“Mr. Tharkay.”

Tharkay looked up from the maps strewn on the small table in front of him. Laurence was standing by the tent flap, waiting for him to pardon the intrusion. Though he had no dragon, he’d been afforded a tent of his own, not large, but large enough to receive a guest and give at least the semblance of privacy, being a bit removed from the main encampment.

“Captain Laurence,” he said, quickly concealing his surprise behind a neutral expression. “How may I assist you?”

It was after dinner, and most of the aviators had settled in after another day of hard flying, just as intense as the first. They had been aloft nearing a week now, and each day their company steadily grew as more and more of the Chinese aerial forces joined them, that by the time they flew over the neighbouring province into Zhengding their number was closer to threescore and ten. Tharkay had taken it upon himself to update his maps; he’d come by Xi’an before, a number of times, but only through more circuitous roads, never a direct route from the capital.

“My apologies for intruding upon you, unannounced,” Laurence said; the man looked, if by far too dignified to be nervous, then somewhat uncertain, “But I did not know how to broach the matter earlier, and to wait any further would not decrease its awkwardness at all.”

Tharkay regarded him, his face still carefully blank. “You mean the issue of our acquaintance?”

Laurence nodded. ”Temeraire has been telling me that we were in each other’s confidences before my...present circumstance,” and his words had the air of apology about them. “I am lately short of company, and then I thought that I might perhaps inquire after yours, if his accounts were not mistaken.”

After a moment’s consideration, it was not so surprising that Laurence had come to him, especially now knowing that Temeraire had vouched for his character. It was plain to any observers (though he hoped that his own scrutiny was not so easily observed) the strained atmosphere between Laurence and the other aviators, as the latter clumsily toed around the issue of his treason. Though Tharkay thought every second of keeping the matter a secret from Laurence as terribly ill-advised, it was also already past the point of when the topic could’ve been brought up with any grace, and anyway, it was hardly Tharkay’s place to be the one to do so.

Still, it would be churlish for him to deny such an overture, so sincerely given; Tharkay allowed himself the barest hint of a smile. “Yes, I am not embarrassed to say that you called me friend once, and if there is anything that ails you so, I will be glad to listen, if you wish me to,” he replied, to which Laurence gave a small look of relief.

They sat outside, the slight chill being preferable to the stuffiness of the small tent. Positioned as they were on top of a small rise, they were able to observe the quiet bustle of the camp at late evening as they spoke, in low voices, first of small introductions (“We first met in Macao in 1806, when you required passage to Istanbul overland, and commissioned me as a guide; I ended up accompanying you all the way to Danzig, and then to Edinburgh,” he said, levelly), before eventually coming around to more serious matters. The same concerns that Tharkay had earlier recognised seem to have occurred to Laurence also, for he now voiced reservations about their expedition: they spoke of the possible motives of the conservative faction; the politics involved in assembling a force of such awesome size; what, exactly, they were likely to find in Xi’an. Tharkay had felt the very same sensation, of being pieces in a larger chessboard, but nothing more concrete than conjecture and speculation. He was, however, surprised by the nature of some of Laurence’s misgivings, and by the fact that he could so freely share them with him.

“I almost wonder if I am still fevered,” Laurence professed, his eyes cast down, as he gave some details of his earlier conversation with Hammond, “if this is some lingering consequence of the injury to my mind, that I now entertain such morbid thoughts—”

 _It hardly requires trauma to think the English to be capable of such, much less the government_ , Tharkay thought, but bit his tongue. Instead, he replied, hoping to sound reassuring, “You cannot ascribe such a thing to it. If there is profit in a venture, there will be men found to perform it.”

“Yet it does not signify,” Laurence said, looking grim, “that my government must be complicit in the matter, only I cannot help but consider the possibility.”

“More likelihood than possibility, unfortunately,” Tharkay said bluntly; the profitability of the opium trade was common enough knowledge, even for men with a history of more reputable employers than he. “Though if it is any comfort, I’m inclined to take Hammond at his word; such maneuvers would only jeopardise his efforts for the past half-decade. If there is anything underhanded going on, he is not like to know about it.”

Tharkay supposed it was petulance, and being caught so unawares, that made him so exaggerate that first night with Granby. Objectively, William Laurence the Navy Captain was not so far removed from the Laurence he knew in all important respects—a fair, thoughtful man, if perhaps still with more honor than sense—though it would be inaccurate to say that Tharkay could not identify some of the habits that were the influence of Temeraire and life in the aerial corps; from the set of his shoulders, to the line of his mouth, this Laurence held himself more severely, which Tharkay would have previously wagered could not have been possible. Then again, perhaps the onus was on him, for looking so closely at all as to have noted such trivial details.

“If you would accept my authority on the matter,” Tharkay ventured, “I do not know exactly what Temeraire has told you of me, but I will be so bold as to say that I did know you well, and enough in your confidence that I would be comfortable in telling you otherwise: these are not such far-fetched suspicions. Your memories are lost, but your injury did not much alter your sensible nature.

“You are as rational now as you ever were,” he continued, trying for his usual wryness, “though I leave it to your good judgement whether that is truly such a compliment.”

For a moment, Laurence did not reply, and Tharkay had started to think he might’ve been too daring after all, when Laurence laughed, which in turn made him realise—he had not heard the sound in a good long while.

Still smiling, Laurence said, “Fair enough, that Temeraire warned me of your sharp wit. I must always value your honest opinion, and I thank you for it.”

“I am glad that you have a high enough opinion of me, to confide these matters,” said Tharkay, “despite that we are so lately introduced.”

“In truth, I cannot find it in me to distrust you. Even as my memories have left me bereft, it is easier for me to believe that we are friends, than the contrary,” Laurence replied.

It was perhaps for the better that, having spoken for some time, the hour had grown sufficiently late for Laurence to take his leave. Laurence stood, holding out a hand to pull Tharkay to his feet, which he accepted, taking some care that his touch did not linger.

“I thank you for your company, Mr. Tharkay, and for imposing upon you in such a manner.”

“It is no imposition at all, Captain,” said Tharkay, and it was not until Laurence was out of sight that he allowed himself to sit back down to the ground, lost in thought.

*

Over the next few days, it had become common, for Laurence to seek him out, and discuss some matter on his mind or the other. Tharkay had received the impression that Laurence found it easy to talk to him, and he supposed he should be so relieved, at the measure of something recovered—but then again, it doubly served as a reminder of what had been lost, and Tharkay found himself preoccupied as such.

(For one, there was a very real possibility he would never again hear his first name spoken by the man. It was hardly some momentous occasion—that first night aboard the _Allegiance_ , Tharkay had offered him his first name and Laurence had received it, smiling wide and open as he rolled the syllables on his tongue. “Tenzing, then.” For better or worse, at some point, Tharkay had gotten used to hearing his name, sometime during the countless restless nights adrift at sea, or flying aloft the desert. A name spoken genially, but not excessively so, reserved perhaps for private company; maybe over a game of piquet, a glass of port in hand, and with such an easiness of manner as though it was barely of consequence, instead of incontrovertible proof that Tharkay had admitted someone past what should've been tall, unscalable walls, past defenses he had rigged so that nothing else could burn what was left of his heart.)

Laurence once despaired of his circumstance, a man beholden naught by love of country or family, beholden to none but himself. A wholly solitary existence that Laurence had confessed seemed to him utterly miserable. It was frustrating, that he could not even tell the man how entirely mistaken he was to assume that Tharkay still belonged nowhere, and to no one. That hadn’t been true for quite some time.


	3. Chapter 3

“We will arrive in Xi’an the day after next,” said Tharkay, slicing an apple into a bowl with a small knife, “if we maintain our current speeds, and I don’t see General Chu slowing down just for the greater size of our force.”

Their company had soon passed the marker for Taiyuan, and from there followed the line of the Fen He to the outskirts of Yuncheng, the mountains at the horizon growing larger by the day. They were making phenomenal time to their destination, despite that the English dragons were having a harder time of it, lagging slightly behind their Chinese counterparts. Their numbers had increased further still, at almost every checkpoint, though at a slower rate than when they had first set out.

They set up camp down the river valley, along one of the greater tributaries; the ridiculously ornate, silk-draped pavilion that served as Temeraire’s quarters had been erected for the night at the center of their encampment, clearly visible from where Tharkay had installed his own tent at the farthest peripheries.

“They seem well accustomed to assembling forces of such a size, and at a moment’s notice,” Laurence said, his voice worried. He was sat across from Tharkay in a small chair near the tent’s entrance, looking down at Tharkay’s maps where they’d been arranged on a borrowed writing desk.

Tharkay could hazard a guess at some of Laurence’s concerns; such a formidable force, though promised as allies, was an equally formidable threat, should their mission turn awry. “I suspect that we will be joined by the last batch when we reach Xi’an. Although I cannot guess at the precise numbers, I don’t think we’ve assembled three jalan just yet,” he said.

“You mean to say this is not yet the full force of our expedition?”

Tharkay shook his head. “I am quite certain.”

“I cannot account for it,” Laurence replied, a slight expression of astonishment on his face, “both the number of their dragons and the size of their aerial corps.”

“I suspect the latter is due to their having a greater number of soldiers to choose from, having allowed women into their ranks.”

Laurence stared at him blankly. “To...to captain the dragons?”

“Aye, and the rest of their crew. Their aerial force are almost all exclusively women,” said Tharkay, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as Laurence turned away, becoming deeply flustered. Tharkay couldn’t say he wasn’t enjoying watching the internal conflict between Laurence’s recognition of filial duty, and his deepset notions of propriety.

“Good Lord. Are the dragons so insistent upon it?” Laurence asked, a little helplessly, to which Tharkay offered him a slice of apple.

“From my understanding, families prefer to send their daughters to the corps, and keep their sons in the fields,” he answered.

“Well,” Laurence started, when Tharkay saw the glint of something sharp just outside the tent flap, reflecting light from the moon and lanterns both, and he launched himself bodily to push Laurence to the ground, the blade missing them both by a hair’s breadth. In the same motion, Tharkay tossed the knife in his hand with a sharp flick of his wrist at their assailant, who staggered backwards away from them, blood spurting from his throat.

The tent had collapsed in the fray, but Tharkay quickly pushed aside the canvas and got to his feet. He retrieved the blade from its recently dispatched owner, and at his back he felt Laurence do likewise, drawing the sword at his belt, as four black-clad figures approached from all sides.

The dao in his hand was a short, curved blade with a flaring tip, different from the military-issue sabre used by the Chinese aerial forces. One of the assassins lunged at him, a wide slash aiming for his neck, which Tharkay parried deftly. With careful footwork, he kept one assailant in front of the other, so that the second assassin could not attack him without cutting through his comrade; they could also not get to Laurence without first going through him. He parried a second blow, deflecting the sword to ground and locking it there with his own; with his free hand he unsheathed a thin dagger from his belt and stabbed it into his opponent, an upwards thrust from underneath the man’s ribs. Behind him, in a break between the sound of clashing metal, he heard Laurence shout in a deep, booming voice, “Ho, the camp! Murder!”

Tharkay pushed the dying man off of his shoulder and stepped back, but the other assassin had already come around his left side; the thrust of his blade grazed his forearm, and blood began to flow down his hand, to the hilt of his sword and along the sharp edge of the blade. The injury had bought him time and distraction enough, however, and with a quick slash an arm’s length away, Tharkay had cut the assassin’s throat with his knife.

The air was thick with the noise of combat, as well as the far-off commotion of the camp rousing to attention. Tharkay whirled around—there were still two of them left, fighting Laurence in concert; Laurence parried the wide arc of one strike at his head, before bringing his sword up just in time to block a second one aimed for his throat. With an upward slash, Laurence disarmed one of his attackers, wrenching the sword out of his hands with the force of his blow, before running the assassin cleanly through with his blade. The remaining assassin lunged at Laurence’s exposed flank, but Tharkay had intercepted his strike, and locked blades with him.

A loud crack split the air; the assailant in front of him went slack, his eyes turned dull, before he fell face-forward to the ground. Tharkay looked up to see Emily Roland holding the smoking pistol, with Ferris and the rest of Laurence’s crew coming in behind her. “Captain!”

“Laurence, are you hurt?” Tharkay said, turning to his side. Laurence was panting just lightly, the color still high in his cheeks, but aside from the torn sleeve of his coat and a small cut on his jaw, he was unharmed.

“You are injured,” Laurence said, concern and worry in his voice; he stepped forward and put a careful hand under Tharkay’s elbow to examine the wound.

Tharkay was still for a moment, but soon recovered himself. He stepped away from Laurence, and stabbed the bloodied dao into the ground; his own dagger he wiped on his ruined coat, and put back in its sheath.

“Merely a scratch,” Tharkay replied with practiced indifference. “After all, I was not their real target," he added, and if there was an ache in his chest for reasons unrelated to the men that had so recently tried to kill him, he was very skilled at ignoring it.

*

There were no further attempts on Laurence’s life on the way to Xi’an, at the walls of which they were received with such a massive assembly of dragons that even Tharkay could not entirely hide his surprise from showing. Not that it could be said that their luck was much improved after having reached the city; they left early for mountains west of the city the very next day, to the smoking remnants of some remote village. General Fela had introduced it as the White Lotus’ stronghold, and alongside it the opium they had dreaded to find.

Tharkay repressed a sigh at the discovery. Near twenty thousand pounds’ worth found in the village, apparently delivered by a British merchant dragon.

That night, their party had been set up distinct from the rest of the camp, with a dozen scarlet dragons patrolling their boundaries on the feeble pretext of protecting their company, and Laurence in particular.

Here in the mountains, it was a simple enough matter to arrange a murder, and frame it as the work of rebels. At any rate, being so confined had made easier the task of keeping close to Laurence, or at least ensuring the man’s proximity to Temeraire. “You’d do well to keep at his side. We can only expect them to try even harder after having failed the first time,” Tharkay had said to him, while replacing the dressings on his forearm. The bandages sank into the small basin, muddying the water to a dull rusted colour.

“Let me,” Laurence said, and took the fresh roll of gauze from Tharkay. He had come to his tent, having apparently found the company of other aviators unbearably oppressive.

As Laurence carefully wrapped the soft cotton around his arm, Tharkay asked, “Are they still discussing how we are to fight our way through some two hundred dragons?”

“It might come to that regardless; we’ll hardly have much choice in the matter, should they choose to put us to the sword,” Laurence replied, tense and slightly distracted. He was still incensed at the discovery, and had made as much apparent to Hammond earlier that evening. Betrayed, if not by his country, then at least by his own countrymen, made a fool and a liar if all of the claims now levied against them were true.

“We had always known of the possibility that this is all a trap,” said Tharkay levelly.

“I do not see how you can remain so calm while speaking of it.”

Tharkay shrugged. “Fela is lying.”

It was a curious irony, maybe even the very same that found amusement at Laurence’s loss of memory, that Tharkay had lately found himself in the role of vouching for England's virtue, however tepidly, against one of her most dutiful subjects. At Laurence’s wide-eyed expression, he continued, “The matter of Britain’s treachery was likely enough, but this has all been too conveniently arranged for Mianning’s enemies in court. What do the merchants at Guangzhou have to gain in supporting some provincial rebellion, when their merchandise need not travel far from port to make a profit, let alone cart it to the mountains on dragonback?”

“Yet the chests we found were from Guangzhou, from a British ship,” Laurence said doubtfully.

“The East India Company cannot ferry their goods by dragon,” Tharkay said bluntly, “for the simple reason that they do not own one. It must be that it is such a common practice here that it simply never occurred to Fela that such a fiction would be suspected.”

Laurence had no immediate answer to his explanation; in lieu of a reply, he instead finished tying the bandage on his arm. “My thanks,” Tharkay said, when the other man’s silence persisted.

“I apologise, if I seem in any way distracted,” said Laurence slowly, before stepping back. “My thoughts of late are so adrift that I find it hard to ground myself,” he added, quieter than before.

Tharkay understood, likely more than he ought, having recently found himself at a similar disposition—some recent sensation of loss, of being unmoored from some reliable anchor. He paused for a moment, and then said, “It is late. Perhaps rest will find you some peace of mind.”

Maintaining a pretense of distance was proving difficult, when Laurence persisted in seeking out Tharkay’s company. Yet it was harder still, to begrudge the man as much. Maybe it was some form of karmic retribution, to berate Tharkay for not exerting real effort at all—if so, he couldn’t exactly deny that he deserved it.

*

Tharkay stole away early the next morning, making his way on foot to the ruined village. A large party had no chance of attempting the same, but the animation of the camp at daybreak made it a simple task for a lone, inconspicuous shadow to slip past the watch unnoticed. When he arrived, the town was already cleared, the last of the fires burnt out; the stone-paved roads leading out of town were overgrown, though the smaller dirt paths that led to the mountains bore signs of recent traffic.

As he walked through the queerly silent buildings, Tharkay’s earlier suspicions only grew stronger, though the lack of surprise did nothing to assuage the sinking feeling in his gut. Dread, perhaps, was the word for it. There was nothing to account for why there were so few signs of struggle, certainly not the sort of viciousness rightly expected of their rebels; neither did it signify that there were no prisoners left alive, from whom they could extract more information. No, this was a town of little consequence, isolated from the outside world, and the recent carnage decidedly one-sided, the same sort found at the executioner’s block.

Yet, there was still the question of why, and the even more difficult one of how they could endeavour to prove such claims.

With a quickened pace, Tharkay made his way back to camp at noon; the side of the valley they were ostracised to was surrounded by a screen of tall willows that allowed him to return equally unnoticed as when he had departed.

Or perhaps, not quite. Granby was searching for him near his tent, when he’d arrived. “There you are! How do you always manage to disappear so?”

“What is the matter?” Tharkay asked, “Is there already a reply from the capital?”

“No, but the news is no less miserable than that,” Granby answered, his voice dire. “Laurence had just discovered himself to be a traitor.”


	4. Chapter 4

It had only been some small argument, a slip of the tongue; sick with worry from the recent attempt on Laurence’s life and such other dangers he'd perceived, Temeraire had confronted Laurence in great distress. “What if they mean to take you away, or send more assassins to you at any moment when you are not with me?” Temeraire had said, clawing at the ground anxiously, “I have half a mind to fly us away from here, back to our valley in New South Wales, far from anyone who would like to kill you—”

“Temeraire, please, calm yourself,” Laurence had then pleaded, sounding not a little confused, “I am as safe as I ever can be in your company. And whenever should we have been living in New South Wales?”

There was little choice but to explain the whole of it, after that; Tharkay had let himself consider, for a mere moment, of making himself scarce once more. At least, Laurence had finally allowed himself to be led away from the edge of the escarpment, where he'd been standing much too contemplatively; now, they were in Granby’s tent, Laurence seated on a chair, a small thumb of rice liquor pushed into his hands. He obediently downed the glass, and wordlessly held it out for another.

“It was a wretched business, no two ways about it,” said Granby, refilling the glass, “and I’m damned sorry that we kept it from you for so long. Tharkay was right. We should’ve contrived some way of breaking the news to you, regardless of what Hammond kept insisting that you were still too shook up to know.”

“I think I can scarcely blame myself, if having forgotten,” Laurence replied, lowly, “I did not wish to remember this,” before finishing his second glass. Then, abruptly, “I beg your pardon: may I ask your opinion of the act, of the—”

Granby threw at Tharkay a sideways glance, before answering the query. He assured him that the treason had been just, or as just as treason could be, the monstrosity of the plot apparent to anyone with a solid conscience. “They asked me, you know, if I’d had a part in it, and all I could tell them was you wouldn’t have taken any help, and I wouldn’t have thought of it,” Granby said. “Not that you did either, as Temeraire came up with the notion.”

Laurence stayed silent throughout the explanation, his face a mask of hollow shock. There was nothing Granby, or any of them, could say to truly reconcile Laurence with his treason. The endeavour had been hopeless enough before the years had fallen out his head, and even then Laurence had only ever managed resignation to the reality of it.

“You’ve your pardon now, restored to service,” Granby tried anyway.

“A pardon cannot restore a man’s reputation, and still less his honor, if lost,” Laurence said, his eyes cast down. “I suppose I was pardoned for Temeraire.”

Tharkay closed his eyes for a moment, and then cleared his throat. “If I could make one request,” he said, “of affording both your past self and Temeraire some leniency of judgement. No doubt, your acts condemn you as a traitor, but they do not name you a coward.”

“There is hardly a word that better fits my circumstances,” Laurence said quietly.

“I can scarcely imagine the sort of notions currently flying through your head, of how you could have been driven to such extremity,” said Tharkay, dryly, “But as you do not remember, I shall have to disabuse you of some of them; you have not undergone some great degradation of morality in the years since you acquired a dragon.”

“Will, for God's sake,” said Granby, having cottoned onto his concerns, rubbing at his face with some exasperation, “don’t you consider that a coward would not have been such a fool as to turn himself back in for the hangman’s mercy, as you did?”

Laurence looked taken aback at their words, but took no offense. “I—forgive me. I just cannot answer the question of how I’d resolved myself to such course of action, when the mere idea of it now threatens to tear my heart apart with discord.”

 _Simple,_ Tharkay did not say, _you tore your heart apart to do it._

Instead, when he spoke aloud, his words were, “The discord you feel now is the very same as that of when you performed your treason, amplified a hundred times over. And yet consider now, that you still went through with it.”

*

The conversation had alleviated Laurence’s condition somewhat, though the doubt and self-recrimination remained. Tharkay was fortunately already accustomed to taking it part and parcel with the man, and for what it was worth, at least Laurence no longer felt so inclined to stand near ominous precipices.

“I beg your pardon,” Laurence had responded, after several moments, “I cannot suppose I concealed my feelings from Temeraire at all well, and he was distressed already. I must go and speak with him.”

But Temeraire was nowhere to be found in the camp. According to O’Dea, he’d flown out not an hour ago, with just a bare number of men aboard; Ferris, it was reported, along with Forthing and Sipho. Regardless, the patrols flying overhead could not have failed to notice Temeraire’s absence.

"Damn," Tharkay cursed under his breath; then he took Laurence and Granby aside.

To all appearances, the village had been a simple farming town, indistinguishable from any other, bearing no tells of the sort of operation they were purported to have run there—a major operation that had acquired such enormous supply of Indian opium, if Fela’s claims were to be believed, but now simply vanished without a trace.

“I do not think there are any rebels here,” Tharkay said, “nor British smugglers either, else they would’ve happily strung them up already for us to see.”

“What are you supposing?” asked Granby incredulously. “Do you mean to say that General Fela burnt a whole village to the ground just for show?”

Tharkay nodded. “I suspect it’s less for our sake, than it is for General Chu and his forces.”

With the rumors of rebellion in place, Lord Bayan and his allies had excuse to refuse Mianning’s policies, without the need for outright opposition; only, they did not foresee the Emperor sending their party out here, in formal command of a considerable force, and the support of an experienced general. Fela’s recourse was to discredit them against Chu, and at the same time exploit having isolated Laurence and Temeraire from the capital—the vital threads of China’s relations with Britain.

“The only proof we had that there was even rebellion,” Hammond had said, after they’d brought him and the Imperial dragon Mei into their fold, ”were General Fela’s reports.”

“We must have proof,” Mei said anxiously, in as near a whisper as a creature of her size could manage, “if there is anything credible in your accusations, it is nothing without physical proof. Perhaps, if you had not killed all the assassins from the other day, we could’ve extracted some confession from them of General Fela’s treachery.”

“But they are dead, and there is nothing to be done for it,” Tharkay replied.

“How could I not have seen this, when it was General Chu himself that eradicated the last of the White Lotus rebels near a year ago?!” Hammond exclaimed, mopping at his brow with his shirtsleeve, rather ineffectively.

“We have to find Temeraire, and quickly,” said Laurence, his voice urgent. With such number of eyes upon them, they could not slip away easily, or not on any of the heavyweights, in this case; it hardly needed to be said that their guards would not take kindly to Iskierka or Kulingile flying out of camp.

“I can take Immortalis, or Messoria,” Tharkay said quietly, his words directed at Laurence.

Laurence gave him a curt nod. “I will go with you.”

“But Captain, it is far too dangerous for you to leave camp now!” urged Hammond, “You could let Mr. Tharkay or any of the other captains search for Temeraire—”

“I am equally at Fela’s mercy here or elsewhere,” Laurence said, cutting off the rest of Hammond’s protests. In a stance that brooked no further argument, he turned away to the direction of the other aviators, Tharkay following closely behind.

*

“There is smoke coming from that mountainside,” shouted Tharkay through his cupped hands, “some ten wing-beats northeast!”

The day had grown long, the sky already a deep red as dusk prepared to fall upon them. They flew low in the sky aboard Immortalis, searching for signs of Temeraire. From the air, Tharkay could discern some recently made trails, though whether it was them or some other party, he could not be sure.

“Do you suppose there’s any chance we could’ve missed Temeraire’s returning to camp?” Little asked as Immortalis set down, stroking the dragon’s neck. He looked warily at their surroundings, tall evergreens enclosing them on all sides.

“O’Dea said that Temeraire meant to explore the village,” Laurence replied as he dismounted; Tharkay was already on the ground. “If they had turned back to camp, we would’ve seen them aloft.”

They had alighted in a small clearing, filled with brush and prickly juniper bushes, but at least they were well-hidden from prying eyes. From their vantage point, they could see over the ridge a system of caves, on the side of the mountain across from them; at the largest mouth were some scaffolding and fortifications, and on the slope leading to the entrance were fresh tracks of footsteps and cart wheels.

“There are crates just past the entrance,” said Tharkay as he lowered the spyglass and passed it to Laurence.

“Are these the rebels, or Fela? Could Temeraire have been captured?”

“It’s impossible to tell at this distance, but I can’t conceive of how they could’ve captured Temeraire without raising—”

Tharkay was interrupted when Little suddenly shouted, “Captain, behind you!”

Both Tharkay and Laurence turned around in time to catch sight of two armed men quickly charging at them from the trees. They had barely drawn their weapons when a slash scored Tharkay on his shoulder, and he riposted with a sharp hack at his opponent’s leg, cleaving it to a bloody stump.

“Come on!” Laurence yelled at Tharkay, and together they ran towards Little, still seated atop Immortalis.

Their escape was cut off when two great armored beasts suddenly emerged from the cover of the tallest trees. Little’s reach fell short, missing Laurence’s outstretched hand, and he and Tharkay both fell back to the earth, as the Yellow Reaper bound away from two sets of snapping jaws and wickedly sharp teeth.

The scarlet dragons chased Little and Immortalis higher into the sky; on the ground, more enemies were coming out to the clearing, converging on their position, swords and spears in hand.

Tharkay threw a dagger through the air, which buried itself deeply into one of their assailant’s shoulders; he cursed quietly, having aimed for the man’s throat. He deflected the spear thrust aimed at his chest, and stepped forward to bash the pommel of his sword squarely at the man’s nose. As the man staggered back, Tharkay brought the weight of his sword down on the spear shaft, breaking it in half, before whirling in place to slash straight across his attacker’s stomach.

A shot rang behind him, and the air was suddenly sharp with the smell of gunpowder; Laurence had fired his pistol through the eye of one man and cocked the hammer back for a second shot, which found its mark in the thigh of another. Using the temporary halt in their advance, he had grabbed Tharkay’s hand and pulled him along, further into the cover of the trees.

Tharkay had deigned not to mention it earlier, in their conversation with Hammond, that Laurence exposing himself out here to search for Temeraire might well serve as lure for Fela’s men. The idea had clearly occurred to Laurence, and Tharkay could hardly refute it as their best chance of catching their assailants red-handed. They left word with Granby, to be ready to come to their aid at a moment’s notice, and Mei instructed to alert General Chu immediately should anything arise.

“I counted six enemy soldiers coming from the treeline, perhaps more,” Tharkay said, while Laurence reloaded his pistol. High above them, a bright red light streaked across the sky; Little had managed to fire a flare. “Those are Fela’s personal guard against Immortalis. They were waiting for us downwind,” he added.

“I have three shots left,” said Laurence, punctuating his words by leveling his pistol and firing at their attackers. “Two.”

They fled deeper into the trees, down the slope to where the greenery was thickest. They were badly outnumbered, and the disadvantage was telling; their only chance was to stall for time, hope that Granby and the rest could reach them before—

“Will!”

Tharkay pushed Laurence out of the way as the spearpoint appeared in their path like some striking snake; the qian’s horse-hair tassel was a bright red blur at the corner of his vision, as the sharp edge of it pierced through his side. Tharkay grimaced against the pain, white-hot and almost blinding, but he gripped the spear just below the head and pulled away the blade. Beside him, Laurence had stepped forward to drive his elbow into the assailant’s throat, wrestling him to the ground with a sharp thud.

Leaning back against the trunk of some massive tree, Tharkay tried to keep on his feet; with his hands he put pressure on where the spear had stabbed him, trying to stem the flow of blood. He closed his eyes against the sudden wave of nausea, and when he opened them, Laurence was in front of him, holding him by the shoulders; a wound cut around his skull and temple, bleeding freely down the side of his face.

“Tenzing—”

Laurence’s hands were strong and firm as they held Tharkay’s shoulders, but his voice was oddly distressed, as if he were similarly grievously injured; Tharkay hoped he wasn’t. He looked down at his side and beheld with detached concern how much he was bleeding, and a small note of surprise that he could bleed so much at all. His vision had started to darken.

A terrible roar suddenly tore the air asunder; the wind whipped about them as though in a gale, and the sky was nearly obscured by a great expanse of black wings.

“ _Tenzing_ —” he heard Laurence repeat, over the ringing in his ears. His mouth tasted overwhelmingly of copper.

“You remember,” Tharkay said, before he collapsed against Laurence, and consciousness left him entire.


	5. Chapter 5

What followed after, Tharkay could only recall as a series of feverish recollections, clouded flickerings of memory interspersed with nothingness as he wavered in and out of conscious thought. There was the sensation of being carried bodily in someone’s arms, the sound of dreadful pistol-fire, the shouting of men and snarling beasts. He felt flushed and light-headed; the wound on his side had long passed the point of pain well into numbness, and his hands itched as the blood dried upon his skin to the colour of rust.

Time passed oddly, for in one moment he recognised the feel of soft earth at his back, blades of grass between his fingers, and in the next, he was roused to wakefulness by the wind whistling sharply past his ears. Tharkay opened his eyes a fraction to find that they were in the air, aloft on dragon-back. The sky had the dark-ink quality of late evening about it, though he could not discern their current bearing from the stars, obscured as they were behind thick grey clouds.

Tharkay was lying half-upright in a crumpled heap, knees drawn up, leaning on his uninjured side against someone. Laurence was holding him close against his chest, with one hand around Tharkay’s shoulder, the other keeping pressure on Tharkay’s wound with a bundle of cloth. The proximity gave rise to a small voice in the back of his head, cautioning that he was not allowed to be so close, but Tharkay ignored it, instead merely bowing his head back down, fingers clinging weakly to the front of Laurence’s jacket.

Closing his eyes, Tharkay drifted back to sleep to the sound of Temeraire’s wings in the air, and in the half-conscious delirium of blood-loss, imagined their rhythm to be in concert with Laurence’s heartbeat.

*

On the subject of wanderlust:

Tenzing remembered the first time he laid eyes on his father’s estate in Glasgow, just north of the River Clyde, but it was less memory than a collection of vague impressions: industrial smoke; the smell of green grass; a thick morning mist that swept in from the moorlands and enveloped everything in an eerie, ethereal film. The house itself had the air of well-kept abandonment, empty but for servants and expensive furniture, perpetually unlived in. It was not home, for either him or his father, who had long ago left Britain for the farthest reaches of her empire. Tenzing never asked why his father had left in the first place, if it was simply business or some deeper, heritable longing to be somewhere far from there, or why he now returned. He did not much care.

In the early hours when the sun had not quite yet risen, Tenzing would sit on his windowsill, and imagine that he was back in his mother’s village, where the air was much thinner and the mountains cast tall shadows as they reached for the skies; in the haziness of barely-dawn, everything washed out in blues and greys, he could almost believe it. Then, a governess would call out for him with a name that was not his own, and the illusion was broken. As a child, he maintained only quiet defiance, even as the implacable well of restlessness within him only grew, and grew.

When his father died, and the lawyers had finished picking over his remains, Tenzing walked out the front door and did not stop walking, until he felt scorching sand underneath his feet, the sun beating down the back of his neck, all chasing away the cold of his father’s house from his bones. Instead of a home, he had a succession of cities and coastlines and countless nameless places—small settlements along the caravan routes that welcomed wanderers like him, and did not ask him to stay; old oases abandoned to time, half-buried in the sand, where he slept beside his camel in the jagged shade of palm trees, the dry wells and ancient ghosts keeping them company; the great infernal desert itself.

The world grew smaller, even as the roads stretched endlessly in front of him.

Damascus, Baghdad, Taraz, Samarkand, Kashgar, Leh, Patna, Varanasi, Zhangye, Lanzhou, Chengdu, Guangzhou. Istanbul, he thought, he could’ve stayed in, but the city could not keep him without Sara, and she had made her feelings clear. “It is not in your nature to be idle, while my own heart is set on a quiet life,” she had told him once, as they lay together in the dark, “I cannot give you what it is you are searching for.”

It was Sara who made it known to him, the possibility that home could be someone, instead of somewhere, and he did not know if he resented her for it. Perhaps once, and not anymore; perhaps, some part of him already knew before her. What was wanderlust but a permanent, incurable homesickness for a place he knew could not exist?

So he was a man who had freedom and little else, though most days it was more than enough. At the very least, he now also had the skies; when Laurence first came to him, it had been more curiosity about his dragon that compelled him to accept the charge, though he admitted some intrigue about the gentleman himself. He could never hold a similar appreciation for the sea, for there was always the unavoidable suspicion, some sense of menace, of what could be hidden beneath its depths—but the waters welcomed him just the same, when he chose to sail with Laurence to Australia.

By then, Tenzing had already accepted, he would take the sea, or the sky, or any place, so long as Laurence was somewhere he could return, to call him by name.

*

Tharkay woke up, and immediately determined the action as ill-advised.

A part of him recognised that he was fortunate to have woken up at all, given the severity of his injuries, but the persistent, throbbing pain in his left side made it rather difficult to muster more proper sentiments of gratefulness.

There was just enough light to see in the dark from the red-hued lanterns hanging from the cornices outside his window, though not enough to reach the tall ceilings; in the air was the faint odor of rain and flowers, sandalwood ashes growing cold in the brazier. Tharkay was lying on an unfamiliar bed, and he could feel the soft cloth of bandages wound around his torso, over the older injury on his forearm. His throat felt hoarse.

When he made to sit upright, pushing himself up on one arm, he found Laurence sitting by his bedside, head bowed down to his chest as he slept. His hands rested on his lap, on top of some forgotten paperbound book.

In sleep, Laurence looked surprisingly peaceful, in contrast to the expression of permanent worry he had been wearing for the past few weeks. Though the top of his scalp was covered in bandages, amongst other injuries, and there were dark circles underneath his eyes, it was perhaps the absence of severity from his usual posture—the casual slump of his shoulders, the gentle rise and fall of his chest—that gave off the impression of serenity. He had divested himself of his jacket and neckcloth, and his hair was freed from its usual queue to frame his face. Tharkay could just barely make out the sound of his soft breathing.

Without thinking (because he could not _possibly_ be thinking), Tharkay reached out a hand to Laurence’s face, gently brushing away a lock of hair, the tips of his fingers ghosting over a half-healed cut on his cheek. To Tharkay, his moment of weakness had seemed to last only for a second, but a second was apparently all that sufficed. A small shift in Laurence’s bearing told him that the man was awake, but the dread curling in his stomach seemed to have frozen him in place. He wondered how much of his conduct he could blame on some brain fever of his own.

Before Tharkay could retract his hand, Laurence had brought up his own, to hold Tharkay’s in place against the side of his face. Laurence leaned into the touch, and had yet to open his eyes.

“I did not mean to rouse you,” said Tharkay, quietly.

“What little rest I have managed recently has been fitful at best,” Laurence replied, before opening his eyes slowly to regard him, “and I can hardly think of how else I would have preferred to be woken, than by your regaining consciousness.”

Tharkay was yet at loss as to how to respond; Laurence was still holding his hand.

“You have been asleep nearly two days,” continued Laurence, before letting his hand fall away. Tharkay pulled back his hand as calmly as he could, as though his heart were not hammering away, distressingly loud in his chest.

"Will you take some wine?" asked Laurence, reaching for the decanter set on his bedside table. Tharkay nodded wordlessly, and received the glass gratefully, letting the drink excuse his quiet, though it could not last indefinitely. He finished the wine, and set the glass back on the nightstand.

When Tharkay eventually spoke, it was to ask with no little hesitation, “How are your memories, Will?”

“Mostly recovered, even if some of my recollections are still somewhat clouded,” Laurence answered, with a hint of apology. “You need not concern yourself of my condition.”

“I suppose it was the secondary blow to your head, to put what was dislodged back in order,” said Tharkay, as wry as he could maintain, disguising the relief that threatened to overwhelm him, at having now confirmed that he did not merely imagine it in the heat and confusion of battle—Laurence had remembered. He had not been forgotten after all.

“I am well, Laurence,” Tharkay continued, in a softer, yet more insistent tone. “You should get some proper rest.”

For the longest moment, Laurence did not respond, and only looked at him with a curious expression. It could hardly be helped; Tharkay’s previous fears resurged, and he was almost convinced that he had been discovered, when the silence was finally broken.

“I will take my leave of you, then,” Laurence said, his voice devoid of inflection, and as he departed, Tharkay could not shake off the certainty of having missed something terribly important: that the words held some inscrutable meaning, that they were not what Laurence had wanted to say at all.

Tharkay lay back on the bed, and chased after whatever sleep would come to him.

*

When Laurence returned to Tharkay’s bedside later that same day, he did not mention anything of the strangeness of their interaction after Tharkay had woken up, and Tharkay was content to let it lie. He thought his own temporary lapse in judgement could be dismissed as some harmless, if confused, expression of concern, brought about by his condition, but if Laurence thought this, or secretly felt some greater offense at it, Tharkay did not know, and was even less inclined to ask.

“We are in Xi’an?” Tharkay asked, over the small bowl of porridge Laurence had put in his hands when he came in sometime in the afternoon. The sky outside was a bleak gray color, and raining so lightly it was almost mist.

Laurence nodded. They had been given lodging in the old palace, not as grand as the one in Peking, built as it was back when the walled city was still called Chang’an, a holdover of some previous dynasty. Even after its fall as the seat of imperial power, it was still a grand dwelling—yellow roof tiles that glinted gold in the sun, ornate latticework screens, brightly painted dragons winding around tall red pillars. Through the east-facing windows, Tharkay could make out past the thin sheets of rain great gardens of chrysanthemum and persimmon, kept with meticulous care.

It had not been long after Tharkay succumbed to his injuries that Temeraire found them, followed closely by Iskierka and the rest of their formation. Fela’s forces had given battle, and in the skirmish they’d managed to capture some of their would-be assassins, and with them easy confessions of Fela’s treachery, in the unlikelihood that General Chu’s firsthand accounts of the battle would somehow not suffice.

“The rest of the company have gone onward to Peking, to deliver our reports of the situation. Prince Mianning has sent a courier to assure me that they have already begun preparations for assembling the aerial force we will take to Russia,” Laurence explained.

Before, Tharkay would’ve professed that he never found it difficult to read Laurence, with the way the man wore his heart on his sleeve, at times almost frustratingly honest—yet at the moment, he looked to him merely contemplative; Tharkay could not begin to guess at his thoughts.

“I would think you should have gone with them,” he said, his voice carefully neutral.

“I have promised my return within the fortnight,” said Laurence. He smiled, and with good-natured humour added, “Why, are you already so tired of my company, Tenzing?

“Not at all. The company is much appreciated,” replied Tharkay, with some surprise. “Still, it cannot be argued that your presence seems more necessary elsewhere.”

“The surgeons said you should not be moved so soon,” Laurence said, and then, bluntly, “I did not wish to leave you behind.”

Tharkay was mercifully saved from having to invent some response to this statement by Temeraire’s arrival in the inner courtyard. “I have returned from receiving my mother’s message,” he said, ducking beneath the awnings and craning his head through one of the larger windows, “She tells me she looks forward to seeing us again, especially now we’ve helped the emperor so greatly! Only, is poor Tharkay awake yet, Laurence?”

“He is, my dear,” said Laurence, standing up to put a hand on the great muzzle now protruding into the room; thin rivulets of water ran down Temeraire’s hide, to form small puddles on the floor. “Come, you can see for yourself.”

Temeraire’s ruff pricked up as he saw Tharkay sitting upright on the bed, and exclaimed with genuine cheer, “Tharkay! I am very glad to see you faring much better. How are you feeling?”

“Much recovered from my ordeal,” Tharkay replied, “though I would not recommend the experience. I believe I have you in great part to thank for my rescue. Laurence was just regaling me with the events of your most recent battle.”

“Oh, Fela was the most vicious sort of villain! I am disappointed that I could squash him only once,” said Temeraire with great glee, and it only took some little convincing before he picked up where Laurence had left off, telling the story with bright enthusiasm, and if in the telling the account had gained something in the way of embellishment, Tharkay felt no need to protest it.

*

The hours of his recovery went by slowly; in the background throughout was the soft yet constant pattering of rain. Tharkay steadily regained his strength with each passing day, the pain in his side if not so convenient as to have already faded to memory, then at least more greatly manageable; it no longer sapped his strength just to stay awake for longer than a handful of hours at a time, or stole his breath if he exerted himself to any action more demanding than sitting upright. The physicians had allowed that he could leave for Peking with Laurence, in two days’ time when the weather was clearer, though they insisted it was still rather inadvisable.

From what Tharkay could gather, Laurence spent much of his time in correspondence with the capital, and those times when he was not—

“Check,” said Tharkay. Laurence scanned the xianqi board set on the edge of the bed with some frustration, as he soon came to the realisation Tharkay had anticipated several turns ago.

“In three turns,” Laurence said, deliberately, “I will be out of any legal moves, regardless of whatever strategy I come up with now.” He looked up to meet Tharkay’s eyes, his mouth curved skeptically. “I’m beginning to think there must be some fundamental rule to the game which I am missing, or that you’ve neglected to tell me,” he added.

Tharkay gave him the barest hint of a smile. “The countenance of a poor loser does not become you, Will.”

Laurence laughed, running a careless hand through his hair. “You’ve routed me three games in a row with, I suspect, some very minimal effort. It cannot be that all of Temeraire’s tutelage have merely gone to waste.”

“It is because you play still too much like an Englishman,” said Tharkay, not unkindly, “You are used to your opening moves being far more limited, and your pawns being far less powerful.” Then he shrugged. “Or I could be cheating, in which case you are correct, and you have no chance at all.”

Laurence waved a hand dismissively. “Hardly—your pride would not allow you to resort to such measures and extract from me anything less than complete and utterly humiliating victory.”

Tharkay raised an eyebrow. “If I am such a creature of pride, perhaps I am merely too invested in saving face, and never losing.”

“But you are a creature of honor as much as of pride,” countered Laurence in a light voice, taking Tharkay’s general from the board to hold up between his thumb and forefinger, “even if you choose to show it in such roundabout fashions. In many ways you are the most honorable man I have ever known.”

“Please, cease in your insults,” said Tharkay, and began to rearrange the board. “We will play three more games, all of which I now endeavour to win by employing the most shameless tactics I can devise, all so that you may be dissuaded of your fanciful notions.”

It turned out that Tharkay was mistaken; they played five more games after that, the last of which ended in a draw. Laurence beamed at him, and Tharkay let it be; he could not be blamed if he had become distracted, after a time.  

All that while, it did not stop raining.

*

Tharkay did not question Laurence’s near constant presence, and if he were honest there was something of the motive of a coward within it. He feared that, in mentioning it, Laurence might realise the true absurdity of their situation, and undertake what remedy he deemed necesary. He did not know what compelled Laurence to indulge him so, only that he was certain it was a fragile, precarious thing. It was selfish of him to allow it, but Tharkay could live with that part easily; it was the rest he was unsure about.

On the eve of their departure, Tharkay was sitting on the corner of his bed, stripped bare to his waist as he gingerly unwrapped the bandages around his torso, when Laurence entered his room.

The angry red gash marring his side was promising to heal into yet another spectacularly hideous scar, the sutures running in a neat line where he’d been gored through by the spear. Tharkay let the old bandages fall in a bloodied pile to the floor. “Ugly, is it not?” he said, smiling crookedly.

Laurence approached, and knelt one knee on the bed right behind Tharkay, the mattress dipping beneath his weight. He placed the flat of his hand on Tharkay’s back. “Let me,” he said, and held out a hand for the roll of gauze.

Tharkay received the request with indecision; he could express his gratitude, and deny the offered help, as a part of him advised; or he could ask Laurence _why_ , as another part of him dearly wished to. Yet, it was ultimately distraction that won out—the hand on his back felt nearly like a brand, and Tharkay had handed over the gauze before he thought the better of it.

With practiced care, Laurence set his dressings, knowing that Tharkay could’ve done it on his own, that he could request it of any of the myriad palace physicians officially charged with his care. But in this it seemed Laurence would not be deterred; he replaced the wound cover and began to wrap the bandages around Tharkay’s torso, weaving under his arms, fingers ghosting over his skin with an unbearably light touch. With his back turned to him, Tharkay could not see his expression, leaving these sensations divorced from context through which he could’ve begun to decipher them.

When Laurence had finished, they were both of them silent, and Tharkay knew it would remain so unless he chose to confront the matter directly.

“Is it some form of apology?” Tharkay said quietly, still faced away, looking straight ahead. “Do you somehow feel indebted to me?”

“I do not deny that that is part of it,” Laurence replied, “You saved my life, at nearly the cost of your own. You cannot fault me for believing that to be deserving of some remorse.”

Tharkay paused. “My actions were my own. You have no obligations to me,” he said.

Laurence leaned forward, his head bowed down, until his forehead was flush against the nape of Tharkay’s neck. “It is not only a selfless sort of guilt that compels me so, but more some desperate need for reassurance. Would you begrudge me so much?” he asked.

The answer was obvious, of course, but Tharkay could not say the words aloud. Laurence brought a hand up to his back, fingers lightly tracing at the border of his bandages. “I had nearly lost so much, without even knowing anything of its nature,” he continued, his voice almost inaudible. “I had nearly lost so much, before I ever even had the chance to ask of it."

Tharkay could not know what expression he wore on his own face, only that he was not wearing any sort of mask. Perhaps he had simply run out of them. Maybe it was simply the lateness of the hour, or some lingering weakness from his injury, that Tharkay found he could not put up even the barest resistance. “You never had to ask,” he said, his voice low, and added, marveling at his daring, “You need not ask for that which is already yours.”

(Even now, he was reminded of that greatest fear of travelers in the desert, when water was scarce and the sun shone bright and merciless, that the mind should start playing tricks and make forms in the haze of the horizon—the image of a freshwater oasis, or the blurred outline of a caravanserai—only to dissolve into nothing. Mirages preyed on the lost and the desperate, he had been warned, but even mirages could not aspire to be as cruel, or as beguiling, as this.)

“I feel as though I can never fully express my regret at having been so blind, that it took nearly losing you to realise—”

“I cannot be held accountable for what I will do or say,” Tharkay spoke, with near a half-decade of longing and devotion in the words, fond and rueful all at once, “if you should persist in continuing to give a cynical man false hope.”

“You have always lamented my condition as that of some unfortunate excess of honor, Tenzing,” said Laurence, with mild reproach. “Pray, I implore you not to lose faith in me now; I would not make promises I do not intend to keep.”

“Only because you do not know exactly what you are promising,” Tharkay replied, even as he turned to face Laurence, now close enough that he could discern every freckle, every strand of his eyelashes; in the dark, Laurence’s eyes were a clear blue, shining with bright intensity. Tharkay reached out a hand to softly trace the line of his jaw, as Laurence in turn combed his fingers through Tharkay’s hair, until they rested on the back of his neck.

“I only need to promise that which is already yours,” Laurence murmured against his mouth, echoing Tharkay’s own words back at him, before his lips were a soft, light pressure on his own, chapped from the biting wind and days on end of flying. In between the trail of kisses on his mouth and neck and collarbone, Laurence would murmur his name, over and over like a mantra, as though it were some quiet prayer; as though he wished never to forget again.

*

Out in the courtyard, Tharkay was adjusting the straps of Temeraire’s harness. The journey to Peking would take no time at all; they were flying light, with a small complement of Chinese dragons that served as Laurence and Temeraire’s escort. Their entourage had requested in vain, for Tharkay to ride back on one of the other dragons, but the Celestial could not be persuaded to be parted from him, and when they appealed to Laurence, they found only the same sentiment. His injuries, Laurence reasoned, were not yet fully healed, so it was better that he should always keep Tharkay close to him, for his care.

“I have not had a chance to mention it before,” Temeraire said, in what passed as an undertone for him, his long neck twisted back to observe Tharkay fastening the silk and leather over his forearms, “I do not know how it is you got Laurence his memory back, but I am glad you managed, for I was so sad when he had forgotten us both.”

“It was not any effort on my part that had recovered his memories for him,” said Tharkay; the subject of their conversation was across the courtyard in front of the main gate, speaking with one of Mianning’s messengers. “I would closer attribute it to his fortuitous circumstance, and great luck at having managed to be walloped in the head a second time,” he added.

“That is very unpleasant,” said Temeraire. “I would say it was more your presence that helped him recover so. And I hope to ask that you should stay with us, and help me keep him safe,” he added, shifting nervously in place, “Laurence has always fared better when he is with you.”

Tharkay blinked; it was one thing to have arrived at the decision on his own, and another for it to be requested of him by Temeraire. But he nodded, and managed to reply with no little sincerity, “For as long as he will have me,” to which Temeraire looked satisfied.

Laurence cast an eye at them from the across the courtyard and gave them a small wave, which he and Temeraire both returned. They would soon be leaving for Peking, and after that Moscow, and after that—well, Tharkay would let himself be taken wherever, follow wherever, and it would not matter how far he wandered; he would never be lost.

**Works inspired by this one:**

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